FrankenPope listens as Humberto and Claudia Gomez, who are married civilly but not in the church, speak during a meeting with families at the Victor Manuel Reyna Stadium in Tuxtla Gutierrez, Mexico, Feb. 15.

This just in from Catholic World Report: “Pope Francis’ visit to Mexico, which began on February 12, has been received with all of the fanfare expected for a papal visit from one of the most Catholic nations in the world. Just as Mexicans warmly welcomed John Paul II and Benedict XVI, so they are also giving a very enthusiastic reception to the current pontiff, who is making a point of focusing on the country’s suffering lower classes. However, in his rhetorical enthusiasm for the poor and downtrodden, the pope is taking a decidedly different tone from that of his predecessors, one that appears to show sympathy for the region’s controversial tradition of liberation theology, as well as other ideologically-charged political causes….

“Prayer at the tomb of controversial bishop

“However, in his direct addresses to the Mexican people, the pope has touched less on universal themes and more on ideologically-charged issues that tend to fall under the rubric of liberation theology, a tendency that was fought vigorously by Pope John Paul II and Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger during the papacy of the former.

“On Monday, the pope prayed before the tomb of Bishop Samuel Ruiz Garcia, former prelate of the diocese of San Cristobal de las Casas, a controversial figure famous for his perceived support for neo-Marxist movements in the state of Chiapas, where a military uprising allegedly inspired by his highly politicized pastoral approach took place in the mid-1990s. Ruiz was reputed to encourage a synchronistic approach to indigenous cultural practices, seeking to promote indigenous traditions rather than teaching the gospel to the locals, and resulting in a mixture of pagan and Catholic practices among the Maya of the region that remains to this day. His emphasis on politics was so strong that the sacraments were reportedly neglected by his activist clergy; membership in the Catholic Church plummeted and 30% of children in his diocese were reportedly unbaptized when he left office. He also publicly associated with notorious condemned exponents of liberation theology, such as ex-priest Leonardo Boff and others.

“Ruiz’s activities were regarded as so subversive of Catholic doctrine that he was denounced in a letter to the Apostolic Nuncio to Mexico by Cardinal Bernadin Gantin, Prefect of the Sacred Congregation of Bishops, and consequently asked to resign by the nuncio in 1993. However, he refused to do so and held out until his 75th birthday, submitting his resignation in accordance with the Code of Canon Law in 1999.

“The pope’s embrace of one of the major figures of liberation theology in Mexico follows his eyebrow-raising acceptance of Marxist symbols mixed with the figure of Christ in July 2015, when President Evo Morales of Bolivia gave the pope an image of Christ crucified on a hammer and sickle, the traditional symbol of communism embraced by the former Soviet Union. The pope, who brought the image back with him to the Holy See, explicitly acknowledged in a press conference during the trip that the image was the creation of the neo-Marxist Fr. Luis Espinal, who had embraced a form of liberation theology in the 1980s that was later condemned. Although Francis seemed to distance himself from the Marxist intentions of the symbol, his acceptance of the gift was the cause of much consternation in Latin America.” READ CWR ARTICLE HERE

REMNANT COMMENT: It is obvious that the pontificate of Pope Francis is now giving many people grave cause for concern. It’s not just The Remnant anymore. If the Holy Father were to continue down this road and show himself a foil to Tradition and a sympathizer to some of the Church’s greatest opponents, then could it not be said that the fall of the human element of the Church may be at hand? And if that is in fact the case, is the pontificate of Pope Francis not the biggest news story in hundreds (if not thousands) of years? In fact, if there is anything taking place anywhere in the world today that deserves our attention and concern more than the apparent takeover of the Chair of St. Peter by one who seems to be at war with the fundamentals of Catholicism, I’d like to know what it is.

Pope Francis, apparently desperate to reach out to the Catholic Church’s growing base in Latin America, spent the day slapping Americans in the face from across the US-Mexico border.

In Ciudad Juarez, one of the most violent cities in the Western Hemisphere thanks to the drug cartels, the pope walked up a ramp covered in flowers toward a cross “erected… in memory of migrants who have perished trying to reach the United States just a stone’s throw away,” according to Reuters.

Funny, he never did that while visiting Cuba to pay tribute to those who died attempting to escape that Communist hellhole. He reserved his spite for a nation with one of the most generous immigration policies on the planet.

… He concluded, “Let us together ask our God for the gift of conversion, the gift of tears, let us ask him to give us open hearts like the Ninevites, open to his call heard in the suffering faces of countless men and women. No more death! No more exploitation!”

This came shortly after the pope said that capitalism cut against God, and that God would punish “slave drivers of our days” supposedly exploiting workers, adding, “The flow of capital cannot decide the flow of people.”

This is, simply put, asinine.

The reason for the humanitarian crisis driving people north is the corrupt anti-capitalist governance so common to Latin America – the same sort of governance the pope believes is apparently more godly than the capitalism drawing people like a magnet to the United States. So the same system the pope decries is the system the pope wants inundated with victims of those who oppose that system. How ironic. Even more ironic: the Vatican remains one of the most immigration-restrictive states on earth.

… All of this represents an extension of Pope Francis’ slightly-concealed liberation theology. Liberation theology is essentially a mashup of Christianity and Marxist redistributionism – a theology in which capitalists must be blamed for the world’s ills and then forced to absorb all of its problems. As The New York Times reported last May, Pope Francis now regularly hosts Father Guitterez, a founder of liberation theology; they state, “Francis has brought other Latin American priests into favor and often uses language about the poor that has echoes of liberation theology.”